[Carl Childress]

Originally posted by WhatWuzThatBlue
Carl,

I have oft admitted that my goal and that of any of my crews is to get the call right. We have never had a perfect game, but that is what keeps us coming back.

I can cite hundreds of examples of blown calls from early in my career. I would like to think that like most of us, I have learned from them. I recall admitting on this very site that in one NCAA game, I followed the catcher back for a pop up and was screened ffrom the actual catch. I asked to see the ball and made my out call, much to the disapproval of the offensive team. The head coach was out barking his head off and I looked at him in stunned silence. Had he never seen a pop up out before? My 1B partner had a great angle of the ball deflecting off of the net and signalled that I should talk with the crew. We huddled and I came back to say that the ball was foul after the screen deflection. We both took a ton of heat for the remainder of the game, but that was a small price to pay for getting it right. This was a few years before the NCAA actually told us to handle it this way. We had a game at the offense's school a few weeks later and they didn't eve remember the play. I did and it haunted me for a while.

You are the scion of the "expected call", surely you have calls that haunt you. Had you called it by the book rather than ignoring it in deference to those watching, the outcome would have been different. Do any of those calls ever bother you? I humored you, kindly reciprocate.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled program - you are mixing my statement with what you want me to say and have taken it out of context. The title of my initial post about VO was "I hate this call". The fielder who says 'back' is what I was referring to. I have no problem enforcing a VO call on a player who yells "Time", "Foul", "Balk" or "You missed the base, come back." and it affects the play. I have mentioned these before, but you must have forgotten them.

In reference to your play, I would probably call the Verbal Obstruction, since it is specifically mentioned in the book. I say probably, because few things are absolute in this life. Like I wrote, if it is supportable by a Rule or Case book, I will call it. I decline to amuse coaches with anecdotes from a decade old newsletter that only a few people still have. Hell, some of my coaches were in college ten years ago. Why is it that the interp never made its way into the casebook? I choose to file it along with the rule about not throwing the ball around after a strike out. Yes, it was once in a newsletter, but has since been ignored by sensible officials. Let's face it, how many people still have it - I've only seen you and TAC acknowledge such. Neither of you is a textbook OOO, let's not breed any more with interps like this.

Is that an "a"?